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Community Reads

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2024 Oakland High School's Cross Cultural Medicine Anthology (Vol 6)

Please mark your calendars for Samuel Merritt University’s 2024 Community Reads event: Lunch & Learn with authors of Oakland High School’s Cross Cultural Medicine Anthology (Volume 6). Community Reads will host an interactive panel and small group discussions with Oakland High School students about their health knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes and advice for emerging health professionals. 

 

Tues, May 14, 12-1pm

Health Education Center, 400 Hawthorne Ave, Bechtel Room

Lunch and book signing to follow. There will be an opportunity to purchase copies of the book during the event.

RSVP for the event here.

 

Background

 

Community Reads is a community-wide initiative, centered on shared reading of literature and a deep dialog related to critical issues in healthcare. Throughout the year, we engage in conversation as a community while reading and exploring issues related to the structural and social determinants of health in order to reduce health inequities.

 

The Cross Cultural Medicine Anthology is a junior capstone project, created by English teacher Jessica Forbes, where Public Health Academy students at Oakland High research and write a health narrative based on their own experiences and culture. The project includes analysis and discussion of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, inquiry into students’ cultural and personal beliefs about specific health practices and ethnographic research. These essays are combined to create a powerful book capturing issues of health inequities, access, and culture in our local community. 

 

In 2023, Oakland High students partnered with SMU’s Ethnic Health Institute as guest speakers in two College of Nursing classes, Community Health and Theories of Psychotherapy. In addition, SMU students completed assignments based on their essays, such as “Why Don’t We Trust the Doctors?” and “The Power of the Evil Eye.”